


Waste Not, Want Not

by supplimint



Category: Black Survival (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Mild Gore, Pet Adoption, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 07:07:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15137810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supplimint/pseuds/supplimint
Summary: Isol comes back from scavenging the rest of the school to find Hyunwoo trying to coax something out of a hole in the wall.





	Waste Not, Want Not

Isol comes back from scavenging the rest of the school to find Hyunwoo trying to coax something out of a hole in the wall. He narrows his eyes, then dismisses it. The other boy tries to let Sissela in the group sometimes — and she _would_ hide in a hole, coward that she is — but Isol can chase her off when she comes out, so whatever.

He settles down next to one of the mostly intact desks when a sharp bark comes behind the plaster. Hyunwoo coos and makes little gesturing motions for it to come out.

The trapper groans. He hates the animals on this island. If there’s so much as a scratch on this one, he’ll have to recheck the area and set up some of his traps in hopes of catching whoever fought it in the first place.

Hell, they probably ran off and never came back. The dogs are the slowest animals, and if whoever started it didn’t finish it, then they’re a weak, incompetent moron who probably died without even giving him the satisfaction of emptying a full clip into them.

The dog snarls from behind the plaster and Hyunwoo yelps not a second later, yanking his bloodied fingers out from the wall. Did he really stick his hands in? Idiot. It’s a small mercy that the researchers finished their rabies trials.

“Leave the dog,” Isol commands.

Hyunwoo pauses from nursing his hands. “Hey Isol—“

“Leave the dog.” God _damn_ him if he’s going to make Isol have this entire argument again, but Hyunwoo’s already beginning to puff up for his pro-pet crusade.

“I keep saying, it could be useful,” he starts.

Isol scowls. Last time it took almost an entire round for this to end, and that was when they kept getting bounced around the island from ambushes. “Remember what I said.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Hyunwoo starts counting on his hands. “They still attack on sight and slobber everywhere, you can’t clean your guns around them, and you think the dog jeopardizes, as you said” he smirks, “ _our_ chances of winning.”

Isol contemplates spending a bullet to correct him — he’ll make sure to miss anything vital — but the investment isn’t worth the cost. Especially not when he only has one full ammo belt to spare, half of which is now reserved for whoever left the dog alive.

“A stupid dog can’t follow orders like _split up_ or _rendezvous_. We’re not saving it,” he settles.

“The dog training worked on all three of your points when I did it last time,” Hyunwoo points out.

Isol doesn’t have the patience or logic to deal with this. “Ask Hyejin when she gets back,” he grouses, and takes off the heavy gear to stretch his shoulders.

Hyunwoo huffs and reaches back into the hole, where an audible _snap!_ of teeth sounds and he falls back, cursing, bleeding from both hands. Isol sighs and decides to just watch. The school’s free for a good three hours, he might as well take free entertainment where he can.

Hyunwoo winces and tries to twist open the nearest water bottle to clean his fingers. He hisses and drops the bottle when its cap’s ribbed sides dig into the cuts. He turns around, “Do we have any alcohol?”

Isol snorts. “We have soju. But I’m not wasting any on _that_. We’re modified, don’t bother disinfecting.” He knows the inner pocket in Hyunwoo’s jacket is bursting with band-aids from his hospital raid anyway.

Hyunwoo crinkles his nose at him and Isol sticks out his tongue in response. The other boy turns back to the bottle, pulling down his sleeve to use as a barrier between his cuts and the cap. A few seconds later, he’s rinsing his hand.

A pause, and then—

“Are you seriously sucking on those scrapes? God, that’s disgusting.”

“If you want me to stop, pass the soju,” Hyunwoo retorts. “I washed all the spit off, what’s the problem?”

“Fucking mongrel,” Isol mutters. _He can skimp on the band-aids but not soju,_ he thinks incredulously. Hyunwoo pulls back to examine the bleeding, which hardly even trickles. _What a baby._

With Hyunwoo out of the way, Isol checks inventory - his PSG-1, two and a half a clip’s worth of bullets, four packs of dynamite, some snares, a piece of scrap metal, and three mocha bread and iced coffee each. He reloads his PSG-1 and tosses the leftover bullets for now - he’ll need the space soon.

 _Fire station first for hammer and boots, make iron sheets, then go up to the factory for glue and more scrap metal, make booby traps and RDX, down to the town hall for cloth for boots, and back to school, if he doesn’t need to rendezvous._ It’ll be hell on his stamina, but that’s what the coffees are for. If he runs out, he’ll just hope to meet the gorilla at the factory, or find honey at the town hall. Maybe the town hall dog will be alive when he’s there, and he can make battle boots in one sitting.

“I’m back.”

Hyunwoo squawks, clutching his hands to his chest. Isol barely flinches and scolds himself for getting lost in thought. _Can’t strategize when your brain’s bashed out, shithead._

“Jesus christ, Hyejin, don’t _do_ that,” Hyunwoo wheezes. Isol frowns. Himself getting lost in thought was one thing, but Hyunwoo hadn’t been doing anything important, so-

“I thought you were lookout,” he accuses. The corner of Hyunwoo’s mouth turns down.

“No, I thought _you_ were lookout.” He shoots back. “Taking inventory doesn’t need your full attention.”

Hyejin coughs from the doorway and steps into the classroom, soundlessly as always.

“Not now,” she says, and they both quiet down. There’s a bow and quiver on her back, and bloodwing knuckles on her hands. The bottom of her hanbok is tangled with leaves and specks of mud that she’ll have to pick out by hand _again_. Not that she’ll do it alone, since it takes too long. She’ll rope them into it and act like it’s some group-bonding activity.

It is, kind of.

But he has bigger concerns, like the soot in her hair and the singed end of her braid, not to mention the slashes on her sleeves. She’s also chewing on the tail of a baked saury she took with her, her jagged cuts on her arms closing up as her healing goes into overdrive from the calories. They look to be from a stab weapon, judging by the serration.

“Adriana has a teammate this round?” he asks. Hearing that someone’s _that_ much SOL is welcome news in any round. Not many side with Adriana unless they’re truly desperate and ready to risk becoming a human torch on her whim.

Hyejin shakes her head, setting down her archery equipment on the floor. “Ms. Adriana was contesting me for the area, then Mr. Shoichi came along and distracted the both of us. She decided to set a fire and hide to recover.” She takes another bite, not bothering to remove the spine. Isol can hear her teeth grinding the fish bones to dust.

“Did you get her good?” Hyunwoo interjects.

“What about Shoichi?” Isol asks.

Hyejin slides off her knuckle dusters to rest for a bit, still mulling on her mouth full of fish guts. She sits and arranges her skirt to splay out to the side so she doesn’t sit on the hemline’s filth. She chews for a little longer, then swallows.

“Pass me the water?” she asks. Hyunwoo complies, and she starts to wash off the gore clinging to her skin while continuing her report. “I broke her arm, but Ms. Adriana will be recovered by now. Her gear is weak, so she won’t have too much food, but she has enough chakrams to last till the end if she makes it. She probably won’t, though.”

Hyejin finishes wiping off the dried, crusted blood on her arms and turns her attention to her equipment. She rips off a clean section of her sleeve to polish her knuckles. “I’m not sure if the fire has died down — we were at the pond — but if it did, Mr. Shoichi’s probably there. He was looking for the bird, I think. I didn’t get a chance to estimate his supplies. He surprised me and hit hard. I had to retreat.”

Isol hums. Adriana with shitty luck makes things easier this time, but she’s usually picked off before the final rounds start. He’d be happier if it was Shoichi in her place while she torched the businessman to be as crisp as his bills.

Maybe Isol will meet him on the way to the town hall and get to spend that half-ammo belt.

He’s broken out of the happy imagery when Hyejin makes a satisfied sound, picking out a small flap of flesh that was stuck between the ruby-coated feathers of her weapon. He almost makes a face, then looks over to Hyunwoo and feels better seeing him cringe. _He saw worse than that when he was_ twelve. _Wimp._

Hyejin simply ignores them both, wipes the speck off on a chair seat, and pinches the cloth to scrub at the detailed grooves in the knuckles.

The silence is broken by a canine whine, making Hyunwoo jump. “Oh right!” he starts. Isol’s eyebrow twitches. Hyunwoo better not tell on—

“Isol said to ask you about getting the dog in the wall.” Hyunwoo tattles. Hyejin, who would normally then scold Hyunwoo for scapegoating, is too tired to care about who really started this. She turns her head to look at Isol and he can feel Hyejin’s “Fate” telling her to get the dog just to spite Isol this time.

Every time Hyunwoo got a dog, it’s because Hyejin had said yes. Hyejin knows exactly how much Isol hates dogs. She was also the only one with the patience, or rather, the only one he could strong-arm to sit through the entirety of his anti-dog rants. And Hyejin just had a long, tiring battle, after which she trudged here just to hear that Isol deflected Hyunwoo’s endless barrages of pleading to her.

Isol thinks of attempting damage control, but she’s paused in the middle of removing skin bits from her weapon. The piece she’s holding right now is particularly stringy and bloody, just like Isol is and could be, respectively. It’s also swaying back and forth like a hanged man on a breezy day like this one.

Hyejin’s tired face breaks out into a grin and Isol stays _very_ still, not daring to break eye contact. He tries to command her telepathically. _Don’t you dare don’t you dare don’t you dare._ Behind her, Hyunwoo is still eagerly waiting for her decision, eyes shining while he tries to keep a straight face. He’s so excited to get a dog again that he can’t stop to even be smug about trapping Isol like this, the idiot. Isol hopes Jackie absolutely _shreds_ him later.

“Alright,” she says.

Hyunwoo beams, and immediately goes back to the hole to click his tongue incessantly. “Here, puppy-puppy-puppy,” he croons. “Come on, come on.”

He starts snapping his fingers at the dog hidden in the hole. It snarls from a good distance from the opening. From the sound of it, it’s healed up enough to move but not yet come out of hiding.

Without breaking her stare, Hyejin rips off a section of the skin. Blood running down her nails when she digs them in the tendons. Isol wishes that she would look somewhere else while she violently snaps them as she would a neck.

“Hyunwoo, maybe using some bait will help you get closer,” she says, and reaches back to hand it to him. Hyunwoo, also not looking back, gropes around the air before grasping it by the corner. He fumbles with it a little before settling for pinching it as he brings it to his face.

“Oh thanks Hyejin, why’s it so wet, did you bring back a mudfish—” Hyunwoo’s voice dies out as it comes into view, and stares at it staining his hand red.

“Waste not, want not,” says Hyejin, swiveling around to finally turn her attention from Isol to Hyunwoo. “And I thought every little bit would help.” Her torso now obscures Isol’s view of her hand, but from the motions of her arm, she’s ripping off another piece.

Hyunwoo works his jaw and manages to croak, “Thanks Hyejin…”

**Author's Note:**

> Ahhh, I love these kids. No Yuki yet, but he'll appear someday. I'm gunna participate in July's NaNoWriMo to write more fics! Anyone wanna join me?
> 
> Please leave a kudo/comment if you liked this fic! Getting feedback instead of just a +1 hit really helps with writing future fics!


End file.
